Tales Of Bill The Bard

When I first undertook writing this blog... well, for one thing, I had no real idea I'd still be at it five years later. For another thing, it was mostly just a way to vent my frustrations with girls. And to be honest, though my posts have become increasingly veiled and cryptic... it's still pretty much that. I mean really, what better way to simultaneously vent and compose your thoughts into something cohesive than a blog that no one really reads? On a psychological level it's brilliant, because you know that it's possible that someone could A) unearth the blog and read an entry and B) pick apart all the references and allusions to figure out what you're actually saying, so the notion that you could be heard is somewhat exhilarating, but at the same time you know it's incredibly unlikely that anyone will check without prompting, and thus no one will criticize you for feeling the way you do. It's so delightfully secure for something as exposed as a webpage.

Of course no one would ever actually post anything they REALLY didn't want read on a blog. That's the beauty of it. If any of this was so sensitive that I couldn't handle someone knowing it, I'd put it in a notebook or something, somewhere I knew no one could see it. And for that reason, none of this is truly private information. This is where I bury the stuff that I know the people who really care about me could find if they were inclined to go looking. And suddenly, we have a title for the post. I was wondering what the heck I was gonna call this.

So now that the meta portion of the post is out of the way, I have a few things to discuss, none of them particularly grave or serious. The first thing on my mind, as it usually is on Mondays around this time, is How I Met Your Mother. That show has got its groove back in a big way. The last three (possibly four, I don't remember) episodes have been fantastic, and it's starting to seem like they front-loaded the filler episodes into the beginning of the season. That doesn't seem like a great way to maintain ratings, but I guess that doesn't really matter too much considering this is the final season. The moral of the story here is if you gave up on the show at the beginning of this season (or in any prior seasons) you're really doing yourself a disservice, because it has gotten so good lately. Hopefully they can keep the momentum up until the end of the series; they've only got about half a season left to go.

Second, Harry Potter. The books were amazing. Well, let me clarify; books four through seven were amazing. The first one was solid, the second one was honestly pretty boring, and the third one was simply pretty good. But once Goblet of Fire came around, it really took off, and the last book (when they're not walking to a volcano, so to speak) is probably among my all time favorites. The ending was perfect, right up there with Breaking Bad and The Office. I've heard the movie is also really good, and I'm quite looking forward to it, especially considering how generally bad the first three movies were. The first was stupid and kiddie, the second was reasonably interesting, and the third was long and boring. The fourth was NONSTOP ACTION GOGOGO and was quite entertaining, even if some of the scenes (particularly in the graveyard at the end) weren't reconstructed terribly well. By and large though, they cut out the chaff and kept the pace brisk, and I applaud them for that, even if Voldemort didn't come across as quite as sinister as I had imagined.

Third, it finally genuinely feels like Christmas around here. I remember feeling the same way around this time last year (roughly a week before Christmas), that the Christmas season had finally officially kicked off. We've got the tree up, the lights on it, lights strung up in the hallway, candles burning, and the living room is more tidy than it has been in ages, probably since the Super Bowl party last year. I have a new computer on which to play League in glorious 1080p 22" widescreen, I'm connected to the network via ethernet so I don't ever have bad ping and I can even stream while I play (which I've been doing quite prolifically), and I just started playing Bioshock Infinite yesterday, because everyone knows Bioshock games are meant to be played around Christmas time, either just before or just after. I've gotten almost all of my Christmas shopping done already, and since I've been so efficient with it, it hasn't been nearly as stressful as it was either of the last two years. I suppose that can also partially be attributed to the fact that I actually have a car this year and can go when I need to.

In any case, I'm feeling pretty jolly right now. I just finished the most recent episode of HIMYM along with some cheddar cheese ramen, cherry Pepsi, and a holiday pie from McDonald's, I won both games of League tonight (the 3v3 custom matches on Summoner's Rift are usually terribly one-sided but fun if you're on the winning team), AND, following last week's miraculous fantasy football playoff victory against Jenkins, I somehow managed to beat Danny Latin this week, which means that I'll be making a return appearance in the Super Bowl this year, this time against Crutchfield. Life is right in the solid-to-good range, so I'm just gonna cross my fingers for next week's fantasy game, relax and enjoy the holidays, and then... see how things play out once the new year begins.

Now that I think about it, I probably could also have called this post "Heisenblog," keeping with the theme of the first paragraph because it's hiding in plain sight. That would have been good too, I guess.

More Than 20 Minutes

March 4th, 2011. It was a Friday night. I'd spent the better part of the prior week planning, building, testing, and fine-tuning a standard deck. Mirrodin Besieged Game Day was the following day, and I really wanted that full-art Black Sun's Zenith; even moreso, I wanted the Pristine Talisman with the Mirrodin Pure expansion symbol on it. I spent the entire night poring over and playtesting my deck, trying to find any last flaws to correct before the tournament. During a break in testing, I stepped into the kitchen of The Orphanage, and I briefly mentioned the tournament to a girl who lived there. "You're going to win," she said. "Well, we'll see about that," I replied. "Hopefully."

March 5th, 2011. Mirrodin Besieged Game Day. Top 8 got the promo Black Sun's Zenith, and the top 2 of each faction-aligned deck got their faction's promo (I made sure my deck had at least 10 Mirran-symbol cards to qualify for the Pristine Talisman), regardless of total standings. I placed 6th out of 35-some-odd people, and second out of the Mirran faction decks. I got both promos. I came back to The Orphanage that night and brought news to the girl I had spoken to the night before that I did indeed win. Her reply? "I knew you would."

I've always been a big proponent of and firm believer in destiny. There are those who deny the existence of destiny, who say that it flies in the face of free will... and I'm beginning to think maybe they're right. Maybe life isn't about what you're meant to do. Maybe it's about what you set out to do, how hard you work to get there, and whether or not you persevere to see it through to the end.

There are those who say that believers in destiny just use it as an excuse for their mistakes or poor choices, because ultimately destiny means we're not responsible for our own actions. I've never really thought about it that way, to be honest. In fact, I feel like I've taken responsibility for most of my mistakes, and really almost entirely looked at destiny as an explanation for my successes, however major or minor. I dunno, maybe I just have a really low self-image that makes me tend to think that if I do well at something, it wasn't because I exemplified any particular skill, it's just because it was "meant to be," because destiny had decided it would be so. For instance, I did well at that Magic tournament because I got paired up against the right people; I got my first girlfriend because we just happened to be in close proximity to each other for a long time; I got my current job because I was in the right place at the right time and got lucky with my auditions; I made it to Gold in Season 3 of League of Legends because I got matched up with people who carried me to victory in placement. But now that I think about it...

Maybe I did well at that Magic tournament because I practiced. I put a lot of time and thought and effort into a deck that would effectively combat the meta, and I spent the better part of a week working on it, longer than I've ever spent working on something Magic-related before. Maybe I got my first girlfriend because after she initially shot me down, I didn't give up. I was determined and persistent enough to show her why dating me would be a good idea. Maybe I got my job because of how much time I spent working on perfecting my audition tape, and how much I focused on being as good as I could possibly be in my auditions. Maybe I got to Gold in League because I play every night and (despite what it seems like sometimes) tried my best to get better, and performed well enough in my placement matches to, at the very least, not throw games away.

And if that's all true... then maybe it's not all about destiny. Maybe it's about preparation and hard work and persistence in the face of failure. Maybe it IS true that you can do whatever you put your mind to... and maybe I just didn't realize that that was, all along, a key component to my successes.

And if that's true... well then...

"Barney... story's not over."

The Only Hope For Me Is A Bigger Fish

Nobody blogs anymore, and that's probably a good thing. I'm not even sure I actually want people reading this. I mean if they do, that's fine, it's not like I'm trying to hide it, and if I was, putting it on the internet wouldn't be the most spectacular idea. It's not necessarily something I want to broadcast, but it is something I want to get out, and if people are game enough to come looking for it, then so be it. Those are probably the people who would react most reasonably anyway.

I've actually been meaning to get onto this topic for some time now, because I've felt like this for a while, but I never had the inspiration to start until I watched the most recent episode of How I Met Your Mother, where Barney meets the Mother. A brief aside regarding this season: it has, up to this point, been pretty bad. Nearly unbearable, even. But last night's episode, which I just finished watching after scrubbing out in League for the umpteenth time, was perfect. Perfect. I can forgive all the crap and filler and unfunny nonsense they've put us through for the first third of the season just because of this episode, and it has restored my faith that the finale is going to be something really special. But I digress.

"There are plenty of fish in the sea." What a delightfully hackneyed phrase when it comes to post-breakup optimism. So much so I WROTE A POEM ABOUT IT! No no, I shan't channel my inner Kenan-Thompson-as-Maya-Angelou here. I actually just came up with (or rather, borrowed) a different phrase with mostly the same meaning. In Star Wars: Episode I, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Jar Jar are navigating their bongo through the deep seas of Naboo, and whilst being chased by a large fish, Jar Jar starts freaking out. Another even larger fish emerges, eats the first fish, and prompts Qui-Gon to reassuringly remind Jar Jar that "there's always a bigger fish." I feel like the same thing applies to relationships, or more specifically, to girls.

In other words, there's always someone better to help you forget about your last relationship, however disastrous it may have been. I've used that phrase before in this blog. And that's a great way to look at things, isn't it? Don't dwell on what happened before, because someone else, someone new, someone exciting will come along to not only ease your troubles, but actually one-up what you had prior. And that's fantastic... until you realize that it's actually kind of depressing.

One of my favorite songs off my favorite album, My Chemical Romance's Danger Days, is "The Only Hope For Me Is You." It's a pretty friggin romantic song and sentiment. The sad thing is I don't know if it's realistic to feel that way about someone. If there's always a bigger fish, which seems to be true... then how could you ever possibly settle on one person? How could you justify saying "alright, this is it, I've found her," knowing that there is almost certainly someone out there who could top what she has to offer?

And if it's not true... then how do you KNOW when you've found the biggest proverbial fish? What if you passed up on the best possible thing because at the time you thought there might be something better out there? What if your doubts caused you to throw away something wonderful because it wasn't exactly perfect?

After failing so hard so many times at League of Legends earlier this week, I asked myself why I play the game so much. I'm not particularly good at it, and sometimes instead of being fun, it can be downright frustrating. But I keep coming back. Night after night, I continue to play, even when it doesn't always go the way I want it to. The conclusion I came to was that I keep playing because I have weird hours and there's no better way for me to pass the time. And then I saw Barney stumble across the Mother, and she knew exactly what he was going through, a situation he hadn't even fully realized himself.

"I think you were in love and you messed it up... and every moment of your life since then has been spent trying to stay busy enough to ignore that fact."

That's what she said to him and, that's when I realized I do play League to pass the time... because passing the time keeps me busy.



"This is your own masterpiece."
-Obi-Wan Kenobi
Star War The Third Gathers: The Backstroke of the West

The King Of Free Life Conquers Again

I know I said I wasn't gonna post again until I was finished with Harry Potter, and currently I'm a little less than halfway through Half-Blood Prince, but I put the series on pause to read Kevin Smith's book Tough Sh*t, since Danny Latin lent it to me when he came up a couple weeks ago, and I need to finish it before I head down to Lynchburg for Andrew's wedding in a couple weeks.

Think about that. Another man down in less than a month. Pretty soon, just three of us will be left, and of those three, only two are truly single. A sobering statistic.

Anyway, the reason I broke my self-imposed silence was because I finished my provisional ranked matches in League of Legends tonight, and was placed in... Gold V. Yes. Gold. Unbelievable, right? Some might call it the greatest misplacement in League history. I'd call it that, because I'm terrible at League. Somehow though, due to a combination of duo queuing with Danny Latin (who was able to carry the majority of my matches) and my MMR (which apparently is reasonably high, considering I consistently play with high Silver/low Gold Elo players), I got dumped into Gold following an 8-2 record in my placement matches.

And if I can get to Gold, well... I can do anything. And that, incidentally, is what one of the early chapters of Kevin Smith's book is all about: believing you can accomplish whatever it is you set out to do, and because of your belief/will/determination, actually succeeding at it. Considering I've pulled that strategy off successfully a few times myself now, I have good reason to believe he's right.

That said: I ain't heard no fat lady.

I'm Doing Science And I'm Still Alive

Oh, hi folks! I decided to stop by this corner of the internet again to see if anyone had posted anything, and much to my wondrous delight, there were a few new blog posts on my reading list, which is very encouraging indeed. For the most part, I figure nobody really checks in here very often, and for the most part, that's just as well, but if you are here and you did stop by to see if I had posted anything new... well first of all, thank you for reading, and second, I do have new material on the way. I always have quite a bit on my mind, it's usually just a matter of condensing and formatting it so as to be comprehensible to anyone reading. At the moment, however, I'm about a hundred pages shy of finishing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and I cannot, in good conscience, spend a significant amount of time composing my largely irrelevant thoughts while the rest of this series remains unread. It does kind of suck that I already know that, sadly, Harry doesn't end up with Cho, and I think it's quite a shame... although I'd bet pretty much everyone disagrees with me.  But that's just how it goes.

Okay. Back to reading. See you in a bit.

Long Weekend Update

Nobody blogs anymore on this lonely little corner of the internet. I still check regularly to see if anyone has posted anything. They haven't. Though I myself haven't posted anything in recent history, blogging is always at the back of my mind, because there's typically something gnawing away at me that I want to say. And, since so few people ever venture out into this sector, I can post pretty freely in a comfortable style. So here we are.

July the fourth has come and gone again. I had to work this year, but I got Friday off in exchange, and since we weren't doing anything particularly exciting to celebrate Independence Day in the first place, I gladly took the three day weekend, and the mini holiday kicked off pretty well. We went 5-0 in League of Legends on Friday night before I left for the last Dragon's Maze draft, in which I was able to split 1st and 2nd place in the final match and get my promo and prize packs without having to play it out. Saturday saw a trip to the mall with Anthony whereupon I purchased a headset with which to play League, and play League with it I did. Oh and we also wandered over to Price Chopper with Jess and Danielle rather spontaneously, and Chris wore his horse head mask throughout. Of course, we can't forget about the post-League explosion that led to a mini wrestling match between Chris and myself over a misplay in lane. I was pretty mad, but not blinded with rage like I was after that EDH game back at Farm Street where Chris threw the ladle at me out of the spaghetti sauce pot. We were both more or less trying to ensure nothing got broken last night, and it broke up pretty quickly once Missy came out.

Which brings me to the current state of affairs. Sort of. The whole reason I sat down to write this blog was indirectly because of the dreams I had last night. My dreams are often hauntingly realistic, so when I have a particularly disconcerting one, especially one that goes uninterrupted for a long enough time for me to remember the sequence of events in detail when I wake up, it can very well throw off my groove for the entire following day. Today was one such day. I just couldn't shake the funk for most of the day, and the fact that it was rainy and dreary and we had nothing on the agenda but our typical lazy Sunday fare (i.e. League of Legends) didn't help matters. A brief interlude to McDonald's (Wolf Road, because Central was out of iced coffee) did significantly improve things, and my headache dissipated (sidenote: I think I have a caffeine addiction), but there was still that lingering sense of gloom shrouding things for most of the night.

There is a point to this. I'm getting there.

Having basically done nothing but eat and play League for most of the day, we wrapped up just after 1 AM, which is pretty early for us, so I decided that a blog might be cathartic. Except there was one small thing bothering me: I couldn't find my Relient K CD. The only reason I really thought about it was because they came out with a new album this past Tuesday, at least digitally; the physical CD won't be available until July 23rd, which I wish I'd known before hunting for it Friday with Missy and Saturday with Anthony at Crossgates and Colonie Center respectively. The saddest thing is the album I was missing, Forget and Not Slow Down, isn't even very good. I'd actually go so far as to say it's the weakest of all their albums, being quite a downer and having really only two, maybe three decent songs.

Anyway, I didn't know what the heck I had done with the CD, and I had searched for it briefly earlier today but it hadn't turned up. I continued my search, checking my Magic table downstairs, which is where I thought it might have been, but it wasn't there. I looked through the rest of my former downstairs dungeon room, but it wasn't there. I checked my laptop backpack, which was the other place I thought it might be; not there either. I basically tore apart my bedroom looking for it, searched the kitchen, even looked in Chris's corner of the living room to see if it might have wandered over there somehow. No luck. Finally, I gave up in frustration, hoping it would just turn up sooner or later if I stopped worrying about it. Besides, I had ripped the CD to my laptop, and like I said, I don't even like it that much, so no big loss. I headed back to my room to sit down and start my assuredly melancholy blog.

But NO. I could NOT. It drives me CRAZY when something is missing. I went downstairs one more time to make a more thorough search of my Magic table. I picked up a newspaper I had bought last Spring, and lo and behold, there it was. Suddenly, I was at peace. And the weirdest thing was that I wasn't just relieved to find the CD, I was relieved entirely, as though everything that had been bothering me all day didn't matter anymore.

It made me think: maybe the challenges and difficulties we face aren't just here to give us a hard time. Maybe we face them so that when they're over, we can feel that sense of relief or even triumph. My mood went from bad to good, not because something overtly good happened, but because there was closure on something irritating. I've always known that tough times have their expiration date, and that brighter days are around the corner as long as you can wait it out, but it's also hard to keep that perpetually in mind, especially when things seem like they're going so wrong. But when a trial reaches its conclusion, even when it's something as stupid as a missing CD, it's a pretty good feeling, and that's something to consider. This post has gone on quite longer than I originally anticipated, but there it is, the moral of the story. I may be forcing optimism here, but hey, I forced Naya every Dragon's Maze draft and it worked almost every time, so I'm gonna run with it. 

The Chill Part 4: Freljord Patch

Two years ago tonight, I was on the precipice of a life-changing turn of events. And now I think we're approaching full circle.

"THE CYCLE OF LIFE AND DEATH CONTINUES. WE WILL LIVE... THEY WILL DIE."

That's what Nasus says when you select him in League of Legends. Nasus is a cool champion and has a lot of potential to get out of hand, but he just got nerfed with a patch released today. Not a humongous nerf, as far as I can tell, but a substantial nerf to one of his most useful abilities.

"It's only FUN... if they RUN."

That's one of Warwick's movement lines. I really like Warwick. He's possibly my favorite champion nowadays, although I still really like Cho'Gath. I think I'm actually better with Warwick, although that's not saying a whole lot.

We had a fantastic comeback against a fed Riven tonight (and yes, I helped feed her, although I wasn't quite entirely responsible) who was a few hits away from destroying our nexus when Danny Latin managed to get up in time to hold her off. He died again in the process, but bought time for our two damage dealers (Jax and Tristana) to get up and chase Riven off, and then Ben (who was playing Amumu) and myself as Cho were able to jump into a team fight and kill most of the rest of the enemy team. Then once we cleared out the minion waves from our almost entirely defenseless base, both full teams were up and ready to go, and we braced for impact. The enemy team charged in to try and take us out, and we destroyed them. We got into a few more brief skirmishes in the woods (especially after killing Baron) before we were able to truly push back, but once we did, the game was over.

So what does that mean?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's a video game. It has no impact on the real world whatsoever, and as much as I'd like to read into it, it doesn't mean jack squat. I'd tell myself it was a good omen, a sign of impending victory in the face of almost certain defeat... but I figured our undefeated 2 headed giant run on Saturday followed by an undefeated night of League was a good omen too. And now here we are, at almost certain defeat. Because you can't fill your future out with daydreams. Well, sometimes you can. I did once. And that ride has been and continues to be awesome. But the problem with that is I think it's given me a false sense of confidence, the kind of "you can do anything you put your mind to" notion. Sure you can, if you also get lucky. I've always maintained that luck is an essential factor in success, and I'm realizing now that to get so lucky more than once is highly unlikely. I guess what I need to do is patch not even my sense of expectation, but my sense of possibility.

I apologize for the melodrama and the rambling. This has not been my best day ever. I'm sure I'll be embarrassed if and when someone actually reads this, and in a few years or even months I'll look back and chastise myself for being so open about it. But for now, it's gotta go somewhere.

Snack Break

Man. I just got mind-blowingly, ravenously hungry all of a sudden. Maybe that's what it's like to be a Taxxon, except all the time. I don't know why it happened, possibly because the only things I ate all day were two burritos from Taco Bell, and the second one of those was about 6 hours ago. That's probably it. But I was forced to get up out of my bed (or off my wounded floor mattress, as it were) and scarf up some cookies, followed by some milk which, as I've addressed previously on this blog, was not enough, so I had to get more, and once I got more, I didn't have enough cookies left to go with the leftover milk. But it was a predictable problem, so I rummaged through the cabinet and found some of those ThinAddictives that I got back in December. They tasted like Christmas, but they got the job done. I really wish I had some Wheaties or other bran-like cereal. I suppose now that I have a shiny new car, I could just take a 4 AM jaunt over to Price Chopper and get some, but I'm all ready for bed, meaning the only article of clothing I have on is my boxers. Going to Price Chopper would require me to get dressed, and that's not exactly in my best interests right now, because it would require a certain amount of effort, and I'm feeling quite lazy.

And that's where I'm at right now; solving one minor problem at a time in a resourceful manner. I don't have the heart or gravitas to get into the subject matter that I set myself to write on when it struck me that I was screamingly hungry... maybe that was destiny's way of telling me to just relax and have a cookie. Or 6. And some ThinAddictives.

The Chill Part 3: Cold Front

I don't feel very good. As a matter of fact, most of the day I felt like death. There were a few hours, in between about 9 PM and 1 AM, when I didn't feel like crap, but even then I didn't feel good, I just didn't feel particularly bad. I've had a vague and nagging sickness with an undying cough since late December, and I think it's starting to take its toll on my mental state. Or maybe my mental state is perpetuating it. Who knows.

I was looking through my dashboard and read an unposted draft called "EDH Nightmare," wherein I mentioned a nightmare about a game of EDH that was so volatile it actually woke me up. That draft was sort of comforting though, because at the time, Gatecrash spoilers had just started to come out, and I remarked about how I the set didn't look as cool or as fun to draft as Return to Ravnica, and boy was I right about THAT one. Gatecrash is a horrible draft format, but I couldn't remember whether or not I was excited about it based on the spoilers. Having confirmation that I never found the set terribly interesting even when the spoilers were first released is encouraging, because now Dragon's Maze spoilers are starting to come out and that set looks freaking awesome. I'm looking forward to looking forward to drafts again, rather than just dragging myself to them out of some misplaced sense of obligation. I probably shouldn't draft tomorrow night. Have I mentioned that I hate drafting Gatecrash and it's a terrible format?

Anyway, concerning the title, the overnight low tonight was somewhere around 31, and they were calling for freezing rain. In the middle of April. As you may know, I hate rain, but I have absolutely had ENOUGH of Winter for this year, so when it rained for the first time, I was so happy it wasn't snowing. Freezing rain is the worst parts of rain and snow. Fortunately, it felt quite a bit warmer than the 33 degrees it claimed to be outside when I left work, and there was no freezing rain, only a light drizzle once I hit Central Ave. But then I got home, we sucked at League of Legends for a couple games, and I tried (unsuccessfully, obviously) to go to bed early. So there it is. I'm writing to kill time. My once noble blog has been reduced to nothing but basically an online journal. Okay it was never all that noble, but I at least used to try to put some kind of message or point in every post. Now I'm just sitting here for the heck of it, because I can't sleep and it's better than letting my mind wander uncontrollably.

"EDH Nightmare" was a post much like this one... it was born out of restlessness, without purpose or meaning, and it will forever languish as a draft. But you know what? I'm just gonna post this one. Because I don't care anymore. Maybe that's the point... maybe not everything has to have a point. Maybe sometimes we just need to do stuff because we want to do it, or because it will make us feel better even for a short amount of time.

Sure. I'll go with that.

The Chill Part 2

Of course I can't sleep. It wouldn't make any sense if I could. I can operate under the pretense that I am vaguely tired and should go to sleep because it's bedtime, but as soon as I lay down, that's when my mind says "NOT IN MY HOUSE!" That's a reference to this commercial, in case I ever forget.

I woke up this afternoon feeling like I had been hit by a garbage truck for some reason. Maybe it had to do with the fact that my subconscious had been assaulted by a series of weird and ineffably miserable dreams, only one of which I actually remember in enough detail to speak about it. I was in line for a showing of the new Evil Dead remake, and while standing there hearing about how horribly violent it was (which was undoubtedly influenced by having read tweets from Gerard Way and Ray Toro about just that), a preview for a claymation movie called "Twitch"  appeared on a screen in the lobby, about a thing that looked like a mixture of Fiddlesticks, the dude from Grim Fandango, and Scud the Disposable Assassin who could sculpt a ball of putty into different shapes and command it either to come to life or to cease living. It weirded me out. That wasn't anywhere near the worst of the dreams, but like I said, I don't remember any of the other ones in any detail at all. I just know they were bad and had to do with girls, and... oh wait. I remember one of them now. It had to do with a girl I used to know leading me on and then leaving me again. That's probably why I was in such a bad mood when I woke up, and why I went back to sleep to unsuccessfully try to wipe that dream out of my mind. Although if I hadn't tried so hard to remember it, I probably wouldn't have, so I guess it was sort of successful. It still didn't help my mood upon waking any though.

I guess if this post had to have a point, it would be that dreams suck because you have absolutely no control over them, and in my particular case, my dreams are usually so vivid and linear that they're capable of influencing my mood once I wake up. It's been like this for the past couple nights now actually, even extending into last week, although last week seemed to alternate between bad and good dreams. We'll see what happens tonight.

It's Getting A Bit Chilly

I don't want to be Emo McGee. I really don't. But it occurred to me that blog posts aren't born out of happy thoughts, at least for me anyway. They usually form because I have something to say that I can't really say out loud or to anyone in particular. 100% honesty time: even when I have some kind of nugget of wisdom or uplifting moral to the story, I'm only saying it because I'm trying to convince myself it's true, not because I necessarily believe it. For this very reason, I sometimes wish no one at all actually read this blog.

Consider for a second teenagers and their boundless angst. We look at them and think "how could they be so upset over something so trivial? They don't know what REAL problems are." True, they haven't experienced some of life's more advanced complications, but that doesn't make their problems any less real. Your problems scale up as time progresses, so what doesn't seem like a big deal to you now could very well be a grievous trial for a teenager. It's like training Pokemon. Sure, when you've got all eight badges and you're on your way to the Elite Four, Caterpies in Viridian Forest don't pose even the slightest threat. But when you're fresh out of Pallet Town, those same Caterpies could very well knock you out if you're not careful. With experience comes strength, and with that strength comes new challenges. What I'm trying to say is we shouldn't trivialize the plights of others just because we've outgrown the inadequacies they face.

The reason I bring this up is because I look back at some of the older, angstier posts I've written over the course of this blog and think "I was such an idiot back then. How did I let that bother me so much?" But the fact of the matter is, at the time, those were very real concerns weighing heavily on my mind. And I wasn't even a teenager, when I started this blog, I was 22 years old. All I have to do is transport myself mentally to a given time, and then it's like "ohhhhh yeah... I remember what that was like. That was kinda rough."

My life isn't awful right now; far from it, in fact. I have a good job, my family and I are all relatively healthy, my living conditions are stable, and I just bought a new car less than a month ago. There are just... things that make me sad. It's sort of a relief to actually say that, and this is one of the only places I can do it. It's my job to be in a good mood for five hours a night, whether I actually am or not, so it's nice to not have to force a smile for a change. This, of course, is why I started primarily stealth-blogging... I don't really want to freely admit that to most people, and my posts toward the end of 2012 were starting to take on a very downtrodden tone. But I'm not looking for a pity party. I just want to be able to say what it is I'm thinking, especially when I've got quite a bit on my mind, as I do now. Maybe now that I've presented this informal confession, I'll start doing that more often.

A Brief Interjection

Oh, hello there! Good to see you round these parts again. Yes I know, it's been a while. I haven't posted anything here in a hot minute. Hmm. I think that's the first time I've ever used that phrase, but it seems appropriate, so I'm gonna leave it.

Anyway, I've been gone for a while because... well, I really haven't had much to say. That and I've started playing League of Legends every night after work. Old Bill would be so ashamed of me, but it's actually a really fun game (when you win). The only problem I have is that right now (and likely forevermore) I'm not terribly good at the game, and the only champion I can play and have a shot at winning with is Cho'Gath; if I pick anyone else (except maybe Garen) our team is likely doomed. In a way, it reminds me of Mortal Kombat: Deception, and how if I wanted to be certain of victory, I would just pick Baraka. Except I'm actually good at Mortal Kombat and could beat most people with any character; Baraka was just like hitting the auto-win button. Cho'Gath is like hitting the "if you want to win, you have to press this button first; it's not guaranteed, but if you want any shot at all you have to do it" button.

Speaking of Mortal Kombat, I find it interesting how you can reboot a franchise so easily with time travel. The creative team wrote themselves into a corner at the end of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, although it could easily have been fixed if MK vs. DC was actually canon, and I really feel like they kind of missed an opportunity there. Instead of developing a possible storyline involving Armageddon triggering universe overlap with DC and following it up with mending the rifts and continuing the story from there, they had Raiden, at death's door, telepathically send his past self a riddle (hokey, but whatever) which completely altered the progression of events laid out by the first three games, and frankly, not in a good way. I guess it was decent for restructuring the series for future games, but there was one really weak, cop-out sequence right before the end of the game that just left a terrible taste in my mouth.

I guess that's about all I feel like saying now, since I'm getting a wee bit drowsy. It's not much, but I haven't much of substance to say, so when I do, I will return to the blogging front once more and dive right into the trenches. Until then, dear reader(s?), I bid you a hearty farewell.

Wiz Khalifa In Payphone: I Know That Feel, Bro

Alright. I've had enough of being Emo McGee.

A Christmas present from Danny Latin just arrived in the mail. It's a friggin sweet Calvin and Hobbes wallet, which is perfect because a) I have loved Calvin and Hobbes with all my heart since I was seven years old, b) I need a new wallet, and c) it's the first two panels of the very last strip of the comic, which, if you're familiar with it, is so symbolically perfect right now.

For once, I am so very excited about the future.

There's always a bigger fish.

Onward and upward.

And there you have it.

Short and sweet.

"Don't mourn for me. This is my destiny." -Gerrard

I Could Be An Accident

No one blogs anymore. I guess I'll take it upon myself to break the silence.

Before I get underway, I just want to say that I write this blog more for myself than for anyone else. I realize that. I don't want to sound like some self-important peddler of internet wisdom talking down to anyone who reads it. But at the same time, I figure if I can sort things out and reach seemingly reasonable conclusions, then maybe someone else could take something useful away from my conclusions as well, which is why I post this stuff online rather than just writing it down in some notebook somewhere that no one will ever read.

The reason I've been stealth-blogging lately is because, when I first started writing this blog, almost every post had a point I felt I could share with people, some bit of insight I'd gleaned from my experiences that I felt was worth passing along. In the last few months, it's been very introspective, and there's a solid chance that no one would take anything useful from them at all. There's a pretty good chance some of the stuff makes no sense to anyone who doesn't know exactly what's going on in my life, and an even better chance that the people who do will make fun of me for what I have to say. I will say this, though: I know the difference between a witch and a Little Sister. I've encountered a witch before. The crying is the telltale sign.

I'm not wrong about Little Sisters. I'm certain of that. Maybe I'm a little too forgiving, but if more people shared that trait, the world would be a better place. Heck, even the witch wouldn't really have been a problem if we hadn't startled her.

But I'm not a genetic experiment. I'm not a Big Daddy. I don't have weapons or plasmids, or a penitent doctor to guide me. To mix my metaphors and toss in a simile, it's like Nick Fury without an Agent Coulson. The Avengers are all there... but they have no motivation.

And that's where everything stands. If it doesn't make sense, that's probably for the best.

New Year, New Perspective

I just had a moment of quasi-transcendent thought. Naturally it came, like most moments of its kind, right as I was laying down to try and go to sleep, but such is the nature of the beast.

Before I went to bed tonight, I sat at my computer watching some old videos from different points in my college life. As usual, it was both gratifying and somewhat disheartening to look back at some of my finer moments, in the sense that those were great times, but now they're over. I'm a very nostalgic individual, which is why I have so many videos in the first place. I like remembering. As I laid my head down upon my pillow, I had one of those interchangeable thoughts along the lines of "why did I take _____ for granted back when _____?"

*Lightbulb*

Probably at least in part because I spend too much time thinking about how awesome things were "back then." Instead of wishing I could go back to a given point in the past, I should be focusing on having a good time with what's going on now, because at some point in the future I will inevitably look back on my life as it is now and say "man, that was awesome. Why didn't I take more advantage of that situation?" Simply put, today is the yesterday of tomorrow. Everything always looks better in retrospect, so I should try to squeeze as much enjoyment out of the present as I can while keeping in mind that the past wasn't as sparkly as I remember it. That's probably the best way to keep a solid grip on reality.

So here we go. Welcome to 2013. Let's DO this!